Lichtblick Hasenbergl cares for 200 children, teenagers, and young adults between the ages of 5 months and 25 years. Their childhoods are made difficult by poverty, educational disadvantages, tight living conditions, and worries about sick or mentally ill parents.
At Lichtblick, they receive healthy basic care (lunch, fruits for breaks, emergency meals) and are provided with weather-appropriate clothing, school supplies, and hygiene items. They complete their homework and domestic exercises in small groups, and intensive social and practical life skills training rounds out the concept.
Attached is a family center, where parents can take basic language and computer courses, receive help with securing their livelihood, and cope with the challenges of everyday life. They are supported in providing their children with as stable a family situation as possible, despite difficult circumstances.
Project: “Healthy Nutrition and Lifestyle”
One of the particular challenges facing the children and young people cared for by Lichtblick is a diet consisting mainly of highly processed, cheap products that are high in fat, sugar, and chemicals. As a result, these children are less fit and less able to learn and perform than their better-nourished peers.
In the Healthy Eating and Lifestyle project, children are introduced to healthy eating in a playful way, learn about “fit-makers” and “sluggish-makers,” and learn how to put together a healthy breakfast or simple meals themselves. In age-appropriate workshops, they practice researching recipes, calculating ingredients, shopping for them, and cooking them with the teachers. Correct table setting, safe handling of cutlery, and appropriate table conversation are rewarded with a visit to a restaurant, where they can try out the table manners they have practiced.
About the commitment:
The Dr. Otto und Margarete Graber Stiftung promotes the project „Healthy Nutrition and Lifestyle“.
